Utah Jazz: What Dante Exum can provide in midst of his return

In the middle of the Utah Jazz attempting to make a late-season run at the playoffs, they will gain more depth at the guard position with the return of Dante Exum from injury. Here’s what Exum could provide for the rest of the year.

In the heart of a last-second dash to the Western Conference playoffs heading into the home stretch of the 2017-18 NBA regular season, the Utah Jazz have been playing some of their best basketball of the year.

All of that success is coming at the best possible time.

Utah enters Thursday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns in Salt Lake City as one of the league’s hottest teams. The Jazz come into the game against the Suns winners of seven straight and 21 of their last 24 games.

Utah, which went from the middle of the bottom of the West standings to now tied with the San Antonio Spurs for the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference, is just two games back of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the No. 4 seed and 3.5 games back of the third-seeded Portland Trail Blazers.

There’s no question about it, the Jazz are rolling. And now, they will be getting a nice role player back from injury for the first time this year to add some depth to wrap up the regular season.

Dante Exum, who has missed the entire regular season while recovering from surgery to stabilize the AC joint in his left shoulder, is finally set to return to action for Utah.

After being moved back and forth between Utah and its G League team, the Salt Lake City Stars, while rehabbing from surgery, the Jazz announced Wednesday that the guard is set to make his debut on Thursday against Phoenix.

Exum, who is in his third NBA season this year, appeared in three preseason games before undergoing surgery that would end up sidelining him for most of the year. In those three preseason games, Exum averaged 6.5 points, 3.7 assists, 1.0 rebounds and 0.7 blocks in 14.5 minutes per game.

That preseason stat line was a carryover from what we saw from the 22-year-old’s season in 2016-17, where he averaged 6.2 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 18.6 minutes per game.

The return of Exum comes at a nice time for Utah, which is rolling right now. Exum has the ability to provide some balance and scoring within the second unit that will be very valuable.

Not only will this addition add depth within the Jazz roster, but it patches a hole left by another injury that has popped up recently.

Raul Neto, who has been the primary backup point guard to Ricky Rubio while Exum has been sidelined, will be out for about two weeks after fracturing his left wrist.

Even with the way Utah has performed in the second half of the year, it’s important to get everyone healthy at the most important time of the season.

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It’s even more important to have depth, especially if the Jazz do reach the postseason. With the return of Exum, they now have that again.